McNeese Professor Publishes Poetry Book

Breadcrumb

McNeese Professor Publishes Poetry Book

(July 2, 2013) Amy Fleury, associate professor of English and director of the McNeese creative writing program, has released a new collection of poetry titled, "Sympathetic Magic," published by the Southern Illinois University Press.

Her book unveils the everyday manifestations of sympathy as well as the connections wrought by "sympathetic magic"-that indelible tether that binds people, places and objects across time and distance.

Fleury received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Kansas State University and the MFA degree from McNeese. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals, including American Life in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, North American Review, The Southeast Review, Laurel Review, 21st and The Yalobusha Review.

Southern Illinois University Press published her first collection of poetry, "Beautiful Trouble," in 2004, and it was the winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Fleury has been a recipient of the Nadya Aisenberg Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony and a Kansas Arts Commission fellowship in poetry. She was the 2009-2010 Amy Clampitt Resident Poetry Fellow in Lenox, Mass.

"There is no shelter from the blows of fate in Amy Fleury's American heartland. Yet the inhabitants of her poems respond to suffering with quiet dignity and an abiding faith in the interconnectedness of all living things. It has been a long time since a book moved me as deeply as this one. These are not just beautifully wrought poems; this is one of those rare works that can renew the weary human soul."-Julie Kane, Louisiana Poet Laureate and author of "Jazz Funeral" and "Rhythm & Booze."